The Real Deal New York

Famed Grey Gardens mansion sells for $15.5M to undisclosed buyer

Front photo of Betty Buckley and Rachel York in Grey Gardens play at the Bay Street Theater with photo of the East Hamptons’ property behind. (Photo credits: front, Lenny Stucker; back, Taber Andrew Bain)

Grey Gardens, one of the Hamptons’ most famous properties, has sold for $15.5 million to a mystery buyer.

Journalist Sally Quinn sold the East Hampton mansion, which she had owned with her late husband, longtime Washington Post executive editor Ben Bradlee, according to the Wall Street Journal. The couple purchased it in 1979 for $220,000, renovated it, and used it as their summer home until Bradlee’s 2014 death.

The house, which was originally built in 1897, contains 12 rooms and spans 6,000 square feet. Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis’ first cousin “Little Edie” Beale was the former owner, and the house gained notoriety after its depiction in a 1975 documentary with Beale and her mother about two formerly well-off women who were now reclusive and living in poverty.

Listing agent Michael Schultz of the Corcoran Group did not comment on the buyers apart from telling the Journal they were a couple who planned to restore the house.

Grey Gardens sits on 1.7 acres, and amenities include a tennis court and swimming pool. It was listed for sale in February for almost $20 million, and its contents were recently sold off at a three-day estate sale. American Express rented the estate over the summer. [WSJ] – Eddie Small